


Clawing At His Skin

by Pathfinder (Coffeeaftermidnight)



Series: Horrors au [9]
Category: Creepypasta - Fandom
Genre: Blood and Gore, Claustrophobia, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Death, Gore, Gun Violence, Immobility, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Minor Original Character(s), Multi, Other, Psychological Horror, Rape/Non-con Elements, brief but very much present, horrors au, polyamorous horrors: Jeff - EJ - LJ - BEN - Briar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:55:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29760666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coffeeaftermidnight/pseuds/Pathfinder
Summary: Staring down the barrel of his brother's gun, Jeff doesn't even get a chance to say goodbye. But death, as it turns out, is just the beginning of an even worse nightmare...Part of the Horrors AU, a post-apocalyptic/dystopian AU where creepypasta characters [known as Horrors] are in a war with humans, and joy is matched with equal amounts of pain and trauma. This story is extremely disturbing and should not be read by minors or those bothered by what's listed in the tags. Don't get upset at me if this disturbs you - it disturbs me too, and I wrote the damn thing. Probably the darkest fic in the AU so far. If you'd like to see how all this came about, check out my blog at world-of-horrors.tumblr.com, which now has a pinned post explaining the backstory to the AU.
Relationships: Jeffrey Woods | Jeff the Killer/Slender Man, polyhorrors
Series: Horrors au [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1537990
Kudos: 8





	Clawing At His Skin

**Author's Note:**

> The... interactions shown between Jeff and Slenderman in this story have been in my mind from the very first stories between them, however I've never been brave enough to write them into canon until now. I hope I don't regret this.
> 
> Again: This story is extremely disturbing and should not be read by those under the age of 18. Please trust me on this.

And there was nothing Jeff could do. The wind scraped against the buildings around them, the concrete and dead weeds dug into his knees through his jeans. A street lamp flickered somewhere, electric gasps echoing through the abandoned apartment complex. Jeff's eyes were locked on the darkness inside the muzzle of Liu's pistol, because it was kinder to look at than the darkness in Liu's eyes. He was going to die and there was nothing Jeff could do to stop it.

Death was not glorious, he'd known that, but he'd fallen into the trap of imagining it would be. Brutal and bloody, he thought he'd die a martyr like Jane, ripped to pieces in front of cheering crowds, a death that in his childlike fantasies would ricochet through the country and regather his people to make the ultimate stand against humanity. Or the Proxies would kill him, Toby's hatchet swinging too deep, Hoodie's shotgun tearing open his chest. Or he'd make a final stand to protect his mates. Or, or, or...

But there was no glory in death. There was him, and his brother, and a gun, and a backdrop of faces Jeff couldn't bring himself to look at.

"Liu," he said, "please."

Liu didn't answer, didn't move. His finger rested on the trigger, the safety already off. Jeff couldn't look away from the gun. If he did, he'd have to see Nina, her eyes turned away. Puppeteer, his skin the color of shadows, watching without expression. Jane, limbs disconnected from her body, watching, watching, watching. The dead he'd failed to save, haunting him, standing alongside the faceless human crowd. None cheered. None smiled.

"Liu," Jeff tried again but his tongue stuck to the walls of his mouth. "Did they get away? Are my mates okay?"

His brother said nothing. Jeff looked past the barrel and saw green eyes raise towards the sky in clear disgust.

"Liu, don't let them die," Jeff said, Jeff begged. "Don't let the humans kill them. They're my family, they're my people. I love them, I love all of them. Don't let-"

Pain first, then the sound, the gunshot echoing through the night. Blood and bone and brains shot out along with the .45 caliber, splattering the old parking lot. The force knocked his corpse down onto his back. The hole in the back of his skull hit the ground with a wet smack. His corpse lay tense, then twitched, shuddered, feet, fingers, limbs, the dying instincts of destroyed nerves

Jeff Woods was dead.

Jeff Woods was still there.

Liu exhaled. He put the safety back on, and lowered the gun, arms shaking, legs shaking. He closed his eyes, covered his mouth. A man, an older human, crossed the distance from the crowd and pulled Liu into a hug. Behind him, Jane faded to nothing. Nina sobbed into her hand. The Puppeteer wrapped his arms around her and held her, leading her into the crowd that swallowed them from view. The crowd shifted and turned and mumbled and sighed. It was over. The nightmare ended, the story written, the book shut.

But Jeff was still there.

His flesh eyes were sightless and glassy, but Jeff didn't see through them anymore. He felt them go dry in the warm summer air. Blood cooled on his corpse's forehead, thick as it oozed from the hole. Air still trapped in his lungs, he could feel it, feel the final breath he'd never been given the chance to take. 

Jeff pressed against the walls of his skin, curling the memory of his fingers against his cooling flesh, but it didn't yield. He looked towards the crowd of humans, glimpsing Liu, the human man pressing their foreheads together, and called out.

"Liu!"

But his body stayed silent. Liu's closed eyes never opened. The crowd surged and washed over the two men, and dreamlike, they were gone when the gaps reappeared.

"Liu!"

Humans walked around his body. Cameras flashed. Light reflected off the blood pooling around his head. Jeff pressed against his flesh, shouting out at the anonymous masses surrounding him, but they stepped smoothly around him, booted feet cloud-light. He screamed, reaching to claw any who approached, but his body, heavy as a stone, lay dead and still and silent.

They should be taking me somewhere, Jeff thought between his frustration. Back to the capital. Don't they need to prove I'm dead? Why are they leaving without me?

Human footsteps, human breathing so loud he could hear them, faded beyond his head, vanishing into the complex. Jeff pressed the memory of his spine against the inside of his chest, aware of the lumps of his organs around his spectral form. He pushed up, to get onto his feet, to follow, but the corpse didn't move, and neither did he. 

He could not blink, he could not breathe. He was dead. And yet… he was still here. He was inside his body still. 

Jeff lay inside his body, feeling against his spirit the organs, the muscles, the veins and the bones and the cartilage. His hands scraped the inside of his skin, and the soft wind pressed back against him. His legs kicked, turning, pressing, but the flesh didn't give way.

Something like nausea crawled through him. Jeff pushed up against his chest, then dragged against the inside of his skin. His knees pressed up against his hips, going through bone and soft tissue as he fought to stretch the body till he broke through. A fly landed on his arm. He was stuck.

Mind spinning now, Jeff twisted towards the ground. He clawed at his back where the blood slowly puddled like a giant bruise, pressed against his shoulders. His thin collar bones didn't shatter. His throat remained motionless. The skin did not give. He reached into his skull, fingers sinking into the shredded gray matter, but the raw meat of his person remained stiff and still. His fingers found no hole, though he could see it, sense it, clear as the moon overhead.

Jeff screamed.

If he could cry the tears would never stop. He jerked inside himself, unable to close his eyes and shut out the reality of death. He punched, he begged, he called the names of everyone he'd ever known. He called for his parents, called out for Jane. No one came because no one heard. Like an instinct, he knew, no one could hear him.

Alone with his corpse, he felt himself begin to rot.

Was it his imagination he was getting colder? His body heat was fading away. Was it his imagination that he could feel the way his gut churned? In his mind Jeff remembered all the corpses he'd ever seen, the stages of post-death. Where you bloated and burst apart, where the flesh looked like marble, where the animals fed on you. The insects were coming, already he could hear the flies buzzing as they closed in. One was already on his arm… and another on his cheek. Something crawled through the blood to enter his skull, to feast on his gray matter.

Was this the fate of anyone who died at the hands of a Horror? Did his parents feel this way when they died? Did his victims? What would happen to him once there was no body left? Would he cease to exist? Would he ever see his mates again?

He wanted them. He wanted to save them. He wanted to protect them. God if only he could see them all one last time-

An animal approached, claws clicking on the pavement. He couldn't see it yet but he knew it was there. Dread flooded him. Would he feel the way the teeth bit into his flesh and pulled him apart in chunks? Would it tear apart his soul, too? Would he lose himself in the mouth of a predator? 

Numb with fear, Jeff looked towards the sound. A wolf, the largest he'd ever seen. A female, somehow he could tell, maybe some old childhood knowledge resurfacing. He loved wolves once. Maybe being eaten by one wouldn't be so bad. Yet looking at the golden eyes of the she-wolf, something felt so strange. As if she could see him shaking inside his dead flesh.

He looked at her, and she looked back. No, not at his corpse, at him. She could see him, the real him.

"Help me," he begged. 

The she-wolf whuffed and sniffed his dead face. Her golden eyes examined his body. A large paw reached out and rested on his chest.

"I'm trapped," Jeff said. "Please, help me."

The wolf, who probably wasn't a wolf because since when could wolves do this, lowered her ears.

"This isn't normal," she said, her voice velvet and soothing despite the words. "I don't know what to do but I'll-"

Like a whip, something snapped out, hitting the wolf on the nose. She yelped, knocked back by the force. The wolf shook, blood on her muzzle, her golden eyes locking onto something in the darkness beyond Jeff's body. She snarled, white teeth bared.

"Get back!" She shouted. "Leave this place! He must be allowed to mo-"

Something snapped, and the wolf screamed out. Bright blood flooded from the wolf's side. And again he heard the snap. This time it knocked the wolf back, far, her body hitting a distant wall. Jeff screamed, shaking and fighting the walls of his corpse, but the wolf did not get up.

Behind him, dress shoes clicked on tile. Jeff froze.

"No," he whispered.

He couldn't look, couldn't see what was coming but he already knew. He'd played this game before, seen what that monster could do. Jeff lay still in his body, shaking, the memories coming to the surface. A shadow fell over him and all he wanted to do was close his eyes, but he couldn't. There was nowhere he could hide.

"Jeff…" The Sadist, the Slenderman, knelt behind him. Long white fingers came into view, stroking Jeff's flesh-face. Inside himself Jeff shuddered, a different kind of nausea swarming over him. He covered his mouth with his hands, feeling the cold touch roaming down his cheek to his neck, to his empty chest.

The Sadist wrapped his arms around Jeff's body and lifted him up off the ground. Jeff's head fell back, a bloody chunk falling free from the hole, but the Sadist caught his head and supported it. The blank face considered the corpse he cradled, and the Sadist pressed the body close to his chest.

"I wish I could've been there," the Sadist said. 

Jeff shook. The cold arms brought back memories of weakness, of the Sadist pinning him to the earth, to trees, large white hands holding him down by the neck, by the wrists. How cold the Sadist was against him, as cold as the eldritch nightmare's heart.

"You have always been my favorite," the Sadist said. "Right from the start."

"You did this to me," Jeff whispered. "I can't leave because of you."

And the Sadist laughed. He threw his head back and laughed, so gentle, so cruel. Looking back down at Jeff, at the soul within the corpse, the Sadist's face cracked into an open mouthed smile.

"Naïve boy," he said. "Did you really think death would help you escape from me?"

A black tongue fell from the Sadist's mouth, long and dripping. Jeff shuddered, unable to look away as the Sadist lifted his corpse's head. Thick blood dragged down Jeff's face, into sightless eyes. The Sadist leaned down, the tongue dripping black liquid onto Jeff's hoodie, and tilted Jeff's head. The tongue burned Jeff's chin. It traced higher, up his cheeks and the bridge of his nose where the blood reached. Long strokes, the Sadist lapped at the blood, from between Jeff's eyes to into the hole in his forehead. Smeared with blood, the tongue pulled away, licked at the Sadist's fangs, then pressed through Jeff's cold corpse lips into his mouth.

And Jeff launched into motion. He sprung up from his lying position but his legs disobeyed, still dead, still tangled in fabric, still… asleep. With a grunt he hit the wooden floor but that didn't stop his fight to flee, he crawled with arms that ached, even as his mind registered the voices calling his name around him.

"Jeff!" 

"Christ, why didn't he wake up before- what kind of nightmare was he-"

"Jeff, Jeff!" Eyeless Jack's voice shattered through the panic. "Jeff, it's alright. You're awake. You're okay."

Jeff looked up, blinking, gasping, into the face of one of his mates. Eyeless Jack knelt down on the floor. Jeff threw himself into the demon's arms.

The others swarmed him in warmth. Briar pressed against his back. Ben's electric presence warmed Jeff's bare arms. Laughing Jack wrapped them all together in his stretchy grip, arms extending to wrap around them all. And now Jeff could recognize more of where he was. The fire in the hearth, the familiar smell of cooking bread, the checkered curtains in the window, the oversized mattress they called a bed, where he'd thrown himself out of. One of their safehouses.

A safehouse. He was safe. It was just a dream… and as soon as he thought that a chill swept over him. That couldn't have just been a dream.

Eyeless Jack pulled away, looking at Jeff. "Can you talk?"

Jeff swallowed, shook his head. Eyeless Jack nodded, a familiar sternness coming over his face. Jeff's heart warmed at the sight of the man he called general during the War.

"Briar, get him some water," Eyeless Jack said. "Ben, check the cameras. Laughing Jack, look around outside. We couldn't wake you up," he said that to Jeff, looking back at the human type Horror with kindness. "Before you did, I smelled incense from outside. Something wanted you to stay asleep and if it's still around we're gonna kick it's ass."

Jeff pulled his hands away from Eyeless Jack. With shaking fingers, he signed the way they developed during the War.

_ Don't leave me. _

The demon paused, registering the words. Then he nodded.

"I'm not going anywhere," he said. Helping Jeff stand, he guided the other man to the old couch nearby. "None of us are going anywhere." And softly, Eyeless Jack said, "And we're here when you're ready to talk about what you saw."

Shuddering, Jeff let Eyeless Jack cover his back with a blanket, and let Briar place a cup in his hand. But the words didn't come, and wouldn't.

It would be three days before Jeff got the courage to sleep again.


End file.
